Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

peoplespolicyproject.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 534 posts

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#61

Post by mikeash »

btilly wrote: post #36
penagwin wrote: post #5

I never understood why people are against some form of universal healthcare. The idea of "socialism" or "communism" scare many conservatives, but it just doesn't make sense here. How universal healthcare sorta works - we all put money in a pot, and use it to pay for healthcare. How health insurance works - we put money into a company, who uses it to pay for healthcare, while taking a significant cut as it's a private…

I find it ironic that you stated the answer to your own question and didn't notice. That is, how notoriously terrible the government is at organization is a major reason for why people are against universal healthcare. Whether their concerns are overblown or not I leave to opinion. But that is a major fear for many.

I can sort of understand someone thinking that the government is bad at organizing large projects. What I don’t get is how so many people think that while simultaneously thinking that the government is the right tool for carrying out gigantic projects like completely reimagining the government of a foreign country that doesn’t want it.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#62

Post by [deleted] »

MichaelBurjack wrote: post #57
titanomachy wrote: post #16

The Canadian figures seem insanely low. 11.5% total? When I lived in BC making an approximately average income, my effective tax rate alone was 21% [EDIT: originally put 23%]. I paid pension, health insurance, and unemployment deductions on top of that. And that only counts the employee side of deductions. This example is "married with two kids", so it's possible that there are massive offsets that I didn't have acce…

You might have a skewed sense of what median Canadian income is. And your job might be further above that median than you realize. Median Canadian individual income is ~$35,000 [0]. In B.C., your average 2019 tax rate would be 13.34% not including non-refundable tax credits (and so the effective rate would likely be a point or two lower). [1] A median tax rate of 11.5% against a median Canadian individual income seem…

[deleted]

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#63

Post by viburnum »

munk-a wrote: post #17
viburnum wrote: post #8

It’s worse if you include 401k payments to offset a more generous public pension.

Or really any public pension. I feel like if you're <40 then you should be planning for Social Security to not exist when you get old, anything else seems overly optimistic.

Social Security is just sending checks worth 3 or 4 percent of GDP to old people. It’s about the same as defense spending. Nobody ever worries about running out of money for defense.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#64

Post by Someone1234 »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #54
Someone1234 wrote: post #19

I moved to the US from a country with socialised medicine. When you include premiums then taxes in both were roughly similar if not a little higher in the US (ignoring cost of living differences). But even that doesn't include the real sting on the tail of US medicine. You pay a fairly high health insurance premium, but if you actually need health services you then pay again through the nose even with insurance "disc…

It's not always an option, but if it's possible -- consider Urgent Care if that's offered in your area.

We were told specifically to take her to the emergency room by the on call pediatrician.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#65

Post by koyote »

dsabanin wrote: post #33
pjc50 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's employer-chosen, you're not the customer and they're not listening to you either.

Why do you stop there? The chain goes on. Employer will have to listen to the employees or they will be on a lookout for better place to work. It's not uncommon at all for employers to tout benefits as a way to attract new hires.

That is only true for an employee's market.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#66

Post by ben_w »

zrail wrote: post #30
Someone1234 wrote: post #19

I moved to the US from a country with socialised medicine. When you include premiums then taxes in both were roughly similar if not a little higher in the US (ignoring cost of living differences). But even that doesn't include the real sting on the tail of US medicine. You pay a fairly high health insurance premium, but if you actually need health services you then pay again through the nose even with insurance "disc…

$300 is a steal.

$300 [1] is more than I’ve spent on (non-dental) helthcare, in total, over my entire life. That includes one count of general anaesthetic and emergency surgery because of testicular torsion which happened while I wasn’t registered with any local doctor, one burned arm, one being knocked unconscious by a trampoline, and one being hit by a car.

[1] “after premiums” is roughly the same as “after taxes”, right?

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#67

Post by _ea1k »

maxxxxx wrote: post #37
zrail wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$300 is a steal.

My family in Germany throws a fit when they have to pay 50 Euro for something. In the US you can happy if your cost for seeing a doctor is less than 4 digits.

In fairness, the US typically does not cost $1k+ for a simple doctor visit.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#68

Post by vonmoltke »

maxxxxx wrote: post #37
zrail wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$300 is a steal.

My family in Germany throws a fit when they have to pay 50 Euro for something. In the US you can happy if your cost for seeing a doctor is less than 4 digits.

> In the US you can happy if your cost for seeing a doctor is less than 4 digits.

My wife and I have never paid four figures for a doctor visit, despite having two surgeries (one oral), a calf strain, and a dislocated shoulder (with ER visit) between us. The state of medical care in the US is bad enough as it is; you don't need to make up hyperbolic bullshit to make it seem worse.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#69

Post by mikeash »

z2 wrote: post #6
adamnemecek wrote: post #2

Not just that, they are also getting nothing in return. The US voters need to realize just how much are they getting fucked over by the military-industrial complex. I’m not against taxes, I’m against taxes that go to pay for wars as opposed to medical insurance, infrastructure and education.

That budget seems to be always nonnegotiable, despite the occasional media outrage. Realistically, how can US voters change this? As an aside, the US is the only country I've seen give military personnel priority boarding for civilian flights. With all due respect to veterans, it seems so strange to do this sort of worshiping in what is effectively peacetime.

I think we could stand to do significantly less worshipping of our soldiers, but a lot of the ones boarding commercial flights are on their way to places like Afghanistan where groups of unfriendly armed crazy people will attempt to kill them.

Re: US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums

#70

Post by NTDF9 »

tathougies wrote: post #34

Individual US tax payers pay for most of the world's security. This is one tax of being the global super power, so it's not particularly surprising that when you include all things the US tax payer pays for privately that is taxed in other countries, you arrive at a number higher than other similar countries. In reality, there is no country with which we can fairly compare US tax rates.

>> Individual US tax payers pay for most of the world's security.

Security from?

Also, do you know that, in exchange, the rest of the world accepts US dollars as reserve currency?

Post reply on HN